Meet our Team
Natasza Szulc
Our Team Leader. She is the driving force for our team as well as a great level designer and 2D artist.
Bartosz Nowogrodzki
Our amazing programmer. A true lifesaver, an expert in using Unity and Sourcetree.
Alicja Zachwieja
Hi, it me! A 2D artist and also a cat lover. I’m responsible for 2D assets, concept art and animation.
Teamwork
Teamwork during the pandemic was a little harder than it used to be. Having to work remotely with people in different countries was quite a challenge.
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In the beginning, we decided to use Github to share our work.
Github is a website that allows you to host your git repositories so we didn’t have to set up our own server.
Everyone set up their accounts, being university students Natasza and I had access to a premium version of GitHub.
GitHub - setting up the account
However, our programmer and his co-worker only had access to the standard accounts. Both of them are used to using GitLab in their field of work. Therefore we decided to switch to GitLab so we can work more efficiently together. We created our repository on their website and we were ready to work together.
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GitLab - setting up the account and repo
Moreover, GitHub doesn’t have an option to set up the roles for the users. Which was quite important to us because as graphic designers - Natasza and I don’t have a lot of experience with the coding part of game development. For safety reasons we decided that it would be for the best if we don’t have the access to all the modifications that the software offers. By using GitLab, we could now assign different roles to people.
//Natasza being the author of the repository had to have access to everything//
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GitLab - roles
GitLab - roles - access examples
GitHub vs GitLab
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Both GitLab and GitHub are web apps that help developers keep track of code changes and share them with a remote repository.
Both systems allow developers to easily modify their code and share it with a remote repository.
The biggest difference between GitHub and Gitlab is their platform philosophy. GitHub has a higher availability and better performance, while GitLab focuses on offering a more features-based approach.
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SourceTree
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We also decided to use SourceTree and connected it to our GitLab accounts so we can work on our project remotely.
SourceTree is a graphical user interface that enables you to work with git without being limited by the command-line tools. It is a piece of software that you install on your computer, and it is made by Atlassian. //The same company that made Trello//.
Out of all the software we tried to use, this one was the most user friendly and the branch system is easy to follow and we could clearly see who’s working on which part.
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SourceTree - Screenshot
Trello
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Trello is a visual collaboration system that lets us organize and prioritize our projects in a simple and fun way. It was really helpful as we could assign tasks for our team, add deadlines, have a colour system for every part of game development. This not only helped us to stay organised and on track with our deadlines, but we could also see how much work has been done and what was next on the list. This way we stayed motivated - the check box system was undoubtedly rewarding.
Trello Board - Screenshot
Colour system:
Blue - Coding - Bartek
Red - Level Design - Natasza
Green - Art // Assets+Social Media// - Ala
Purple - Narrative - Natasza
Pink - Other
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Discord
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Our main way of communicating with each other was through Discord.
Discord is a digital distribution platform that enables users to create private chats and groups, as well as distribute media and files in their private conversations or communities. We created a private group chat for the game.
Each part of the game development has its own channel so we can keep our work organised. Moreover, this way of keeping things makes it easier to find specific assets and feedback.
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As for the group calls we have them at least twice a week.
During those calls, we talk about things we did and what is our plan for the next few days. This way we keep each other updated on regular basis. It is also a great time to brainstorm about the ways we can improve our game and also for playtesting. We keep each other motivated and supported one another.
The amount of tech-related help I received allowed me to work more efficiently as well as be more familiar with different software.
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Notes from our calls can be found here :
What I learned
Being new to most of the tools we used like Git and Sourcetree I feel like I learned a lot about them. Another important part was that those tools are frequently used in the industry especially now that most of the work is done remotely. I feel more confident and prepared for the future thanks to this module.